فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

INTRODUCTION: Health care is considered as a human right, and fair financial contribution to healthcare plays an important role in providing effective services for all members of society. This studyaimed at investigating the effects of targeted subsidy plan (since 2010) on equality in health‑carefinancing in Iran from 2004 to 2014.MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a descriptive‑analysis, cross‑sectional study that wasconducted using data obtained from households’ expenditure‑income survey that is performed everyyear by the Statistical Center of Iran. The Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient, and  Theil index were appliedto measure inequality in  healthcare expenditures (HEs). Furthermore, the Kakwani index was usedto examine inequality in health‑care finance during the study period. The analysis was performedusing Stata version 13.RESULTS: Kakwani index was negative for all the studied years, except 2007. The value of thisindex was equal to −0.032, −0.045, and −0.046 in 2004, 2008, and 2014 for rural areas and wasequal to −0.041, −0.029, and −0.0001 for urban areas, respectively. Despite the Kakwani index hasbeen negative for most of the years, which reflects regressive financing in health care, there is nosignificant change in the trend of this indicator after the implementation of the subsidies. In addition,this indicator is moving toward being positive (progressive) in urban areas in 2014, which representsincreased share of the poor in health payments.CONCLUSIONS: According to the results, the targeted subsidy plan could not reach to its purpose inhealth‑care system for supporting the poor from HEs. It is recommended for policy‑makers to designa specific plan for health‑care financing and to allocate some defined resources such as taxes orsubsidies to health‑care sector.